9/11: Questions That Still Deserve Answers

More than two decades after September 11, 2001, there are still questions surrounding the attacks, the government's response, the intelligence failures, the destruction of the World Trade Center, and what happened in the hours before and after the attacks.

This isn't a list of conclusions.

It isn't a declaration that any particular alternative theory is correct.

It is simply a list of questions.

Some have conventional explanations. Some have competing explanations. Some remain matters of interpretation or disagreement.

But asking a question isn't the same thing as claiming to know the answer.

1. What exactly happened inside NORAD's air-defense system that morning?

The 9/11 Commission documented significant confusion and communication problems between the FAA and NORAD, including conflicting information about the hijacked aircraft and delays in establishing a common picture of the threat.

What caused those failures?

Were they simply the result of an unprecedented attack and a system that wasn't designed for that scenario?

Or were there additional failures that have never been adequately explained?

2. Why were the official timelines of the military response initially different?

Early accounts of the morning's events differed from the timeline ultimately presented by the 9/11 Commission.

The Commission itself acknowledged that inaccurate government accounts initially created the appearance that the military had been notified earlier than it actually was.

Why did those discrepancies occur?

Were they ordinary confusion during a rapidly developing emergency, faulty recollections, communication failures, or something else?

3. What exactly happened with Flight 77 before it struck the Pentagon?

The 9/11 Commission documented the FAA's notification to NORAD concerning American Airlines Flight 77 and the subsequent confusion surrounding its location.

What information did each agency possess at each moment?

Why did different agencies have different understandings of the aircraft's location?

And could the available radar, communications and tracking records provide an even clearer reconstruction today?

4. Why wasn't the FAA immediately part of the highest-level military air-threat conference?

The 9/11 Commission reported that the FAA was not part of the National Military Command Center's air-threat conference during its first 48 minutes.

Why wasn't the agency responsible for tracking America's commercial aircraft immediately integrated into the conference?

Was this simply an existing communications problem exposed by an unprecedented emergency?

5. What exactly happened with the shootdown authorization?

The Commission's account says that authorization to engage hijacked aircraft was communicated through a complicated chain of conversations during the morning, while NORAD's understanding of the situation was changing rapidly.

Who knew what, and when?

What precisely did each participant understand the authorization to mean?

And how did the information move between the White House, the NMCC, NORAD, NEADS and the FAA?

6. Why did World Trade Center Building 7 collapse?

WTC 7 was not struck by an airplane.

NIST concluded that uncontrolled fires caused thermal expansion and structural failures that initiated a progressive collapse beginning with the failure of Column 79. NIST also concluded that it found no evidence of a blast event.

But competing researchers have challenged aspects of that explanation.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks study reached a substantially different conclusion concerning the possibility of fire-induced progressive collapse.

So the question remains:

Which structural explanation best accounts for everything observed in WTC 7's collapse — NIST's model, the University of Alaska Fairbanks analysis, another structural explanation, or some combination of factors?

That is a legitimate scientific question even if someone ultimately accepts NIST's explanation.

7. Why did WTC 7 appear to undergo a period of free-fall acceleration?

NIST acknowledged that portions of WTC 7's visible descent exhibited a period of gravitational acceleration.

What exactly does that observation tell us about the structural failures occurring inside the building?

How should the observed acceleration be interpreted within competing collapse models?

8. Why did NIST not test the WTC tower steel for explosives or thermite residues?

NIST explicitly states that it did not test the recovered tower steel for explosive or thermite residues.

NIST's position was that other evidence led it to conclude that controlled demolition was not involved.

But another question naturally follows:

Would additional chemical testing have provided useful information, or would it have been incapable of resolving the question because of contamination, removal of material, environmental exposure, or other factors?

9. What happened to all of the physical evidence from Ground Zero?

The WTC investigation involved enormous amounts of documentation, photography, video, interviews and structural analysis.

But the handling, removal and recycling of structural steel has remained a subject of controversy among researchers.

What evidence was preserved?

What was discarded or recycled?

What testing was performed before material left the site?

And what potentially useful forensic opportunities were lost?

10. Why were there significant discrepancies between eyewitness accounts?

Thousands of people witnessed portions of the attacks.

Some accounts agree closely.

Others conflict dramatically.

How should contradictory eyewitness testimony be weighed?

Which memories were recorded immediately?

Which were recorded years later?

And how much can eyewitness testimony realistically tell us about events occurring during an unprecedented catastrophe?

11. What exactly did intelligence agencies know before 9/11?

The attacks were preceded by numerous intelligence warnings concerning al-Qaeda and the possibility of attacks against the United States.

What information existed inside the various agencies?

Which pieces of information were connected?

Which were not shared?

And why did the available intelligence fail to produce an effective warning or prevention effort?

12. Why did the intelligence system fail to connect information it already possessed?

The 9/11 Commission documented numerous intelligence and information-sharing failures.

Were these primarily bureaucratic problems?

Compartmentalization?

Institutional rivalry?

Insufficient resources?

Failures of imagination?

Or were there additional factors that remain unidentified?

13. What should we make of the differences between the 9/11 Commission's account and earlier government accounts?

The Commission itself documented discrepancies between early government statements and the evidence it ultimately assembled.

How much of that discrepancy can reasonably be attributed to confusion, incomplete information and changing recollections?

Were any important discrepancies never satisfactorily resolved?

14. Could the collapse of WTC 7 have been independently reproduced?

NIST used sophisticated computer modeling to reconstruct the collapse sequence.

Other researchers have produced different models and interpretations.

Could independent teams, working from the same available architectural, structural, video and fire data, reproduce the competing scenarios and demonstrate which one best matches the observed evidence?

15. What can we actually prove — as opposed to what we believe?

This may be the biggest question of all.

We know the attacks happened.

We know four commercial aircraft were hijacked.

We know the World Trade Center towers collapsed.

We know WTC 7 collapsed later that afternoon.

We know enormous failures occurred in intelligence sharing and emergency response.

We know government accounts changed as more information became available.

But where does established evidence end and interpretation begin?

That distinction matters.

Because a question isn't proof of a conspiracy.

But neither does an official explanation automatically make every remaining question disappear.

The honest approach is to keep investigating.

Look at the evidence.

Look at the competing explanations.

Look at the weaknesses in both.

And then decide what the evidence actually supports.

**Facts are facts.

Questions are questions.

And unanswered questions deserve answers.**